Officially Unemployed

And Hansel said to Gretel “Let us drop these breadcrumbs so that together we find our way home.” Because losing our way would be the most cruel of things. This year, I lost my way.

And losing your way on a journey is unfortunate. But losing your reason for the journey is a fate more cruel.

The journey lasted eight months. Sometimes I travelled alone, sometimes, there were others who took the wheel and took my heart. But when the destination was reached, it wasn’t me who arrived. It wasn’t me at all.

And once you lose yourself, you have two choices: find the person you used to be, or lose that person completely.

Because sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you’ve been an remember the person you were meant to be. The person you wanted to be. The person you are.

One Tree Hill- The Tide That Left And Never Came Back

I thought the worst was over when I got over what happened last summer and winter, but shit kept hitting the fan.

I failed a class in February and had retake exams in June. That’s 4 months of living in fear of not graduating. I tried everything to get my teacher to pass me without having to retake the exam. I set up a meeting with him (even though he was very reluctant and only agreed to see me after I looked at my exam, which didn’t come out until April…) and asked if I could do an individual project or essay. He said no. So I attended a couple of his classes in the beginning of the other term and gathered notes from my friends.

The days before my retake exam were the most stressful. Mind you, nobody knew I had retakes. I would be the first out of my group of friends to have retakes and I just couldn’t face the embarrassment. So I only told those that I trusted. But even then, there were people who let me down. So this year, I also realized who my true friends were. By doing so, I had to weed out those who I thought were my real friends all along.

Which, for those of you who are wondering, is okay. I always thought that I had to please everybody in my life, even those who talked shit about me. Yes, I’m 22, a college graduate, and up until three weeks ago, there were still people who talked behind my back. If I were 16 and heard the crap they were saying, I would go home and cry. But now, I couldn’t care less. If people talk behind your back, that’s their problem, not yours. They are the ones who do not have the courage to say things to your face, so they cowardly go behind your back and say it to whomever will listen. To that I say they are not worth your time or energy. If you are scared to let them go, then do it gently. You don’t have to cut them off all at once, just do it slowly. Either way, it takes strength to recognize the fact that you need to let people go. Then again, who am I to talk? I practically have no friends anyway ✌

Back to the topic of me almost failing out of college in my senior year- even with all the tears that I cried and all the alcohol that I drank, I still managed to squeeze every inch of life out of me by living it to the fullest and spontaneously. I traveled spontaneously (within a one-week notice) to beautiful places in Europe like Cinque Terre, Paris, Locarno and Interlaken. I never let the fact that I might not even have a bachelor’s degree at the end of my studies stop me. But when the time came to study, I studied three days straight (after a weekend of shopping in London, that is). Sitting in the exam room, I literally felt like I was going to puke. My right leg could not stop rattling under the table and my fingers would not stop shaking. It was only when I received my exam and saw the questions that I calmed down; I knew I would pass.

So yup. Here I am. On a bed in a small city in Germany, living out the unemployed life. I’ve gone back to waking up at noon every day and not doing shit all day. Sounds liberating, doesn’t it? It is. Moral of this post: don’t ever, ever give up. My biggest fear this year was to not graduate college, and that fear almost came true. But I never gave up and I always had faith in myself; if I can do it, you can too.